And then the element of grotesque folly, that underlay this man's nature, had prompted him to satisfy the childlike craving for plenary shrift and absolution. He told her that he had confessed in an unguarded moment to Chetwynd, taken him further into his confidence. At first she had scarcely understood him--the suggestion had stunned, paralyzed her for a few seconds, during which his words seemed to strike her senses dimly, like rain in the night. The complete realization came with a rush--the shame, the degradation--the abyss that he had opened at her feet. Sudden overpowering hate of him had flooded her senses and burst all barriers of reserve and self-control. He had committed the Unpardonable Sin, in a woman's eyes--the crime against her honour. To have won her, kissed her, cast her aside--that is in the heart of a woman to forgive. But not the other. He had betrayed her. Not only that, but he had stabbed to the very soul of her love. The sight of the weak man, who had added this crowning outrage to the havoc he had wrought in her life, goaded her into madness. The very tenderness, with which she had but lately regarded him, made the revulsion all the stronger. “Oh God! I could kill you! I could kill you!” she had cried. He had turned white to the lips, scared at the transformation of the calm, subdued woman into the fierce, quivering creature with glittering eyes and passion-strung words. The eternal, wild, savage woman, repressed for years in the depths of her soul, had leapt out upon him to rend him in her mad anger. She had pointed to the door, stamping her foot, driven him out of her sight. At the door he had paused, and looked at her with a strange mingling of manhood and submission in his eyes. “I deserve my punishment--but I am not all bad. And so help me God, Kitty, my offer will hold good at any moment of my life!” He had gone. She was alone, pacing the room, still shaken with the storm of elemental fury. At last exhaustion weakened her. She drew aside the curtain before her bed, and threw herself down shivering with the shame that was eating into her bones. “Oh, my God!” she moaned, “Oh, my God! That he should have learned--from him--” She drew the sides of the pillow tight about her face. It was agony of degradation. Her body shuddered at the thought of his contempt, the shattering of his faith in her, the man's revolt at the brutality of the revelation. She had been dragged through the mire before his eyes. In her degradation she saw herself the object of his loathing. The sharp striking of the little Swiss clock on her writing-table roused her. She raised a drawn face and looked in its direction. It was only eleven. She had thought hours had passed while she had lain there shivering. A little sense of dismay crept over her. If those few minutes had passed like hours, what would be the length of the hours themselves that had to be lived through that day?